Thomas Starr King deserves better

Such tensions boiled over in 1859, when David S. Terry, the pro-slavery former chief justice of the California Supreme Court, shot and killed U.S. Sen. David Broderick, a noted slavery opponent, in a duel near San Francisco's Lake Merced. That same year, the Legislature passed a bill to cut California in two. Advocates of slavery supported the division, thinking it would ease the introduction of slaves into the lower part of the state. (Unnerved by John Brown's bold raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry and other signs that the national slavery debate was spinning out of control, Congress rejected the idea of splitting California.)

During the presidential election of 1860, all four members of California's congressional delegation -- including U.S. Sen. William Gwin, who owned several Mississippi plantations -- campaigned for the pro-slavery Democrat, John C. Breckinridge. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln won California by a hair, beating another Democrat, Stephen A. Douglas, by fewer than 750 votes out of about 120,000 cast.

King was deeply agitated by talk of California being bisected or seceding. He embarked on a statewide speaking tour, preaching against disunion with a voice that, in the words of one observer, "held within it all the sweetness of the harp when struck by a master hand, all the power and solemn grandeur of a great cathedral organ."

The 140-pound minister wasn't always well received, encountering some hostile crowds and death threats.

After the Confederate attack on Ft. Sumter in South Carolina in 1861, pro-Union sentiment swept California. The Legislature pledged loyalty to Washington, and tens of millions of dollars in gold were shipped east, playing a crucial role in equipping and feeding the federal army.

King was hailed as "the orator who saved the nation."

With the war underway, he again hit the hustings, raising money for the United States Sanitary Commission, which supplied nurses and medicine to wounded soldiers. He collected $1.5 million, about one-fifth of the money gathered nationwide. Exhausted from his relentless travails, he returned to San Francisco and, in 1864, succumbed to diphtheria and pneumonia at age 39.

Ronald Reagan is a giant of American history, and his memory needs no further burnishing.

Thomas Starr King is a colossus of California history, and he deserves better than to be tossed out the back door like yesterday's hash.